Analyzing An Artifact From my Classroom Culture

Shireen. Y. Irziqat
September, 28, 2013


Analyzing An Artifact From my Classroom Culture
Is learning/ teaching English difficult? If so, how can I as a teacher facilitate the learning- teaching process? Is it a MUST that learners be involved in the learning process? How can I engage the learners and increase their learning interaction and motivation? What are the appropriate artifacts that should be adopted to achieve such aims? Many important questions that I always try to answer while teaching. This paper sheds the light on one of the artifacts I employ in my teaching of English for the school learners in order to give some answers for the previous questions. It is the project work by field visits in which I give the students a topic, take them in a field visit related to that topic and then ask them individually or in groups to collect the needed data about that topic, organize it, discuss it and then, agree on the most important to be presented in front of the other students. This project work must be supported with evidence of students' work, such as photos, charts, numbers …etc. It also explains how the idea was first emerged and what were the basic common assumptions about teaching English then. In addition, it discusses in details the procedures of the project work and its influence on the learners.
When I started teaching English at school eleven years ago, the dominant thought ( which was taken for granted) among both teachers and students was that English is very difficult and students will never enjoy learning it or even being engaged with it. However, my own belief was that students have different abilities and they can learn based on them. I was also very certain about the important role of the teacher in encouraging learners to practice the language in different ways, and his/her continuous support which will definitely lead to a clear improvement of learners' performance. That was what really noticed after students were engaged in such projects; they became more motivated, more involved and they became volunteers in many extracurricular English activities; such as performing dialogues and short sketches, singing, participating in language competitions and contests and many other engaging activities.
One example of the project work and field visits was for the ninth grade students to prepare a presentation about Palestinian Red Crescent Society ( PRCS). I took my students in a visit to the premises of the ( PRCS ) in Hebron and coordinated with one of the staff to explain to students the great efforts and services that ( PRCS) provides for Palestinians, and also to answer all students' inquiries that they might have. Students returned back with their notes, photos, reflections and brochures about ( PRCS). A week later, they were ready to make their presentations in front of the whole class. In a response, the other students were asked to raise questions, discuss the presented material and ideas, and the presenters were supposed to be able to answer any question or to justify their choices or ideas. They were good enough to talk about their experience and knowledge confidently. Lots of information and skills were achieved. Consequently, students became more enthusiastic for English lessons, and able to read, write and speak about their own experiences by being involved in such project works.
The idea of field visits and project work in teaching English emerged from my own assumption that the genuine learning is better achieved by doing. And that's what really happened; students were involved in the process. They were observers, data collectors, data organizers, writers and presenters. Each step of the project enriched their knowledge and enhanced their language abilities. Therefore, I began with ninth grade students, then, I expanded the experiment to the seventh grade students to glass factories in Hebron, and then the sixth grade students to the soap factory in Hebron. All of them were supposed to write something about the visit and present it in front of the class, each according to their level. The same effect was on the three levels of students. They all loved the experience and the teaching method, and most of them were able to transform their knowledge to others.
To sum up, I think many writers wrote about the basic assumptions that most of the time contradict with the member's or the groups' espoused values. Whereas in our case, they strongly met since I definitely believe in the teacher's role either to be positive and create a successful, pioneering generation or to be extremely negative and destroy and handicap a whole generation by limitizing their imaginations. Therefore, that was the main reason which evoked me to use such a method to create that kind of learners who became initiatives in many situations, able to observe, discuss, debate, support, defend and justify their choices, decisions and works.